Wodgina has reached the end of its life, with Atlas telling shareholders today it ceased mining at the 6 million tonne a year operation in early April.

The company is preparing to hand back the site to Mineral Resources, which owns the tenements underlying the processing facility, camp and other infrastructure after buying the project from Global Advanced Metals last year.

The wind-down at Wodgina, along with the Pilbara cyclone season and increased freight charges, pushed up Atlas production costs by $1 a tonne to $56/t, including cash production costs, royalties freight and corporate costs.

Atlas shipped 3.2 million tonnes in the March quarter, down from 4 million tonnes in the December period, as Wodgina came to the end of its life.

The company’s hedging strategy again combined with higher than expected prices again cost the company potential revenue. While few in the market expected prices to surge to highs of about $US95/t in February, Atlas hedged 1.5mt of exports in the period at the equivalent of $96/t for 62 per cent product, with the market price averaging $113/t for the period, the company said.

That cost it about $17 million in potential revenue in the March quarter.

But the strategy may pay off for Atlas as the iron ore price falls. It has about a million tonnes of ore hedged at the equivalent of a $94/t spot price for the current period, with the price of iron ore tumbling on Monday to $87.18/t.

Atlas received an average $62 a wet metric tonne for its product in the period, down from $66/wmt in the previous quarter.

Atlas said it had net operating cash flow of $22 million in the March quarter, down from $56 million in the December period.